Terms of Endearment (1983)

True confession time: When I finally got around to purchasing a videocassette play back in the mid-1980s--I was never an Early Adopter, I guess--one of the first movies I purchased (on VHS, remember that?) was Terms of Endearment, winner for Best Picture of 1983. My other purchase was Charlie Chaplin's The Gold Rush. Don't ask me what they have in common other than being classic movies. And I got them both at the Wal-Mart in Starkville, Mississippi, so I guess it wasn't quite the cultural wasteland people might think.

Terms of Endearment starts with Aurora Greenway (a fantastic Shirley MacLaine) coming into her baby daughter Emma's room, fearful that the child has succumbed to crib death. Aurora tries to climb into the crib with her daughter, but failing that, she pinches Emma until the baby begins to cry. Satisfied that Emma is okay, Aurora leaves the room while the baby is still crying. With an opening like that, how can you resist watching to see how this relationship will unfold?

There are actually two main plotlines in Terms of Endearment--at least, until the final half hour--and they intersect briefly at various moments. One is the story of Emma, who grows up to be Debra Winger, a somewhat free spirit compared to the no-nonsense Aurora. Emma marries Flap Horton (Jeff Daniels) over her mother's objections and proceeds to have three children while following her husband first to Iowa and then to Nebraska for teaching jobs. Along the way, she also starts up an affair with a married banker (John Lithgow) who is so very appreciative of the attention that Emma gives him.

The other story is, of course, what happens to Aurora after Emma leaves. She still calls her daughter every day, sometimes several times a day, just so they can gossip, but Aurora begins to fancy the former astronaut who lives next door, Garrett Breedlove (Jack Nicholson, far less annoying to me than he usually is). Theirs is a complicated romance, given his penchant for chasing younger women and drinking. Aurora considers herself to be a refined woman of the world, but she too begins to enjoy the burgeoning sexual relationship between them. Their first "date," a lunch followed by a drive along the beach, is hilarious.

Much of the film is comedic in tone, actually, which might surprise those who have only heard of Terms of Endearment as being a tearjerker. MacLaine, however, is a fine comedic actress, and she knows how to deliver a line for maximum effect. Even Winger's storyline as Emma is filled with lighthearted moments. Only the last half hour, once Emma has been diagnosed with a terminal case of cancer, is downbeat without much levity. It's a powerful half hour, though, highlighted by Winger's speech to her two sons. She's called them into her room to say her final goodbyes, and if you can keep from tearing up when she tells them how much and why she loves them, you're a stronger person than I am.

MacLaine was the sentimental favorite to win Best Actress that year (and did), but Winger is her equal here. They do have very different acting styles, but perhaps because their characters are so different from each other, it works here. Whatever might have happened off-camera during the shooting of this film (and the rumors have been rampant for decades now), it all seems to come together on the screen itself in a way that enhances their interaction.

I know a lot of people will avoid this film because it's too sentimental or too focused on the mother-daughter dynamic--they'll tag it a "chick flick," that demeaning term meant to suggest that only women would like it--but to do so cheats you out of watching some fine acting and some sharp dialogue (written by director James L. Brooks and based upon the book by Larry McMurtry). Terms of Endearment earns all of the laughs and tears honestly, and it features great supporting turns by Lithgow, Daniels, the child actors, even Nicholson. Perhaps that's why it was one of my first videotape purchases a couple of decades ago.